Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cutting apparatus for cutting a platelike workpiece.
Description of the Related Art
In dividing a platelike workpiece such as a semiconductor wafer into a plurality of chips, a cutting apparatus mounting an annular cutting blade therein is used, for example. The cutting blade is formed by mixing abrasive grains of diamond, CBN, etc. with a bonding material such as vitrified bond and resinoid bond. When the cutting blade is worn to some extent, it is discarded.
In a manufacturer or the like performing flexible manufacturing, there are many chances of exchanging the cutting blade according to the characteristics of the workpiece and there is also a case that the cutting blade still usable is demounted from the cutting apparatus. Usually, the cutting blade demounted from the cutting apparatus is stored in a blade case. In storing the cutting blade in the blade case, it is important to suitably manage the use history of the cutting blade for future use (reuse). In this respect, there has been proposed a cutting blade in which a wireless IC tag capable of storing information including the use history is embedded (see Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2006-51596, for example).